


we were not born in sin

by Heavydirtys0ul



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Logan is thirty-five, M/M, Roman is twenty-four, Title from a lumineers song, that's your warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:15:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28113723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heavydirtys0ul/pseuds/Heavydirtys0ul
Summary: Logan and Roman's butterfly relationship in all its fears and glories is not a long tale to tell, but it is a good one.
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 9
Kudos: 50





	we were not born in sin

It's not an interesting day for Logan, who had traipsed halfway across the city on his lunch break to meet a college friend he hadn't seen in many years. He and Virgil, the friend in question, had been friends in the days where they'd been squashed into a two small flat both balancing coffee-shop jobs and college studies; then he'd found him again, online and by complete accident, to find out once again they're living in the same city as each other. Virgil now a teacher and Logan running a freelance business that takes too much time, makes enough money and otherwise exhausts him.

He found himself walking through buildings he’d never been through in his life, navigating a university he’d driven passed and never entered. Logan asked the receptionist where the dance studio was and had dragged himself up three flights of stairs to a collection of large rooms that made a lot of noise. Leaning against the creaking wooden door, he’d simply watched from the outside for a long moment. 

He recognised his old friend, his hair darker and longer, his voice more commanding, but unmistakably Virgil. After the class had ended, not too long after his own arrival, Logan entered the room to talk to the other man, asking if he’d like to grab a coffee as they’d planned. His eyes, however, drifted to the last student remaining, who was in a world of his own with the music and his body. 

Logan’s cold blue eyes surveyed his movements with silent respect, before looking away, engaging back in the conversation he was having with the student’s teacher. When Virgil himself had been studying dance he’d always been particularly blessed but his anxiety was a hindrance at the time. Regardless, now, he seems to be in his element, and he smiles far more than he had. 

Out of the corner of those blue eyes though, he catches the dancer’s movements, before he and Virgil leave the room. “Don’t forget to switch the lights off when you leave Roman!” The dark-haired man calls over his shoulder, Logan already stepping down the hallway. 

“I won’t,” the deep voice carries to Logan’s ears and his breath catches in his throat. Then Virgil is by his side and he forgets mostly about the dancer, Roman, and walks away with a separate conversation on his tongue. 

\--

The second time he meets Roman, it’s in the corridor around lunchtime; Roman was walking down the university corridors roughly two weeks after the first time he’d caught his eyes. Logan was walking in the opposite direction, balancing a cup holder of two coffees and a bag with warm sandwiches hanging off his opposing wrist. He meets the other man’s eyes very briefly, before tearing his gaze away, not wanting to get too caught up in the dark, smooth brown of his irises. The dancer gives him an amused sort of smile that’s almost telling, and the elder man can feel his gaze burning into almost every point in his body. 

But he doesn’t say a thing, and when Logan turns to step into the studio, he catches the back of Roman’s neck with his own gaze and imagines pressing his fingertips into the curls of red hair that brush against the nape. Then he forgoes the thought, and steps into the room with a pleasant smile to be greeted by Virgil. 

Over the space of a few weeks, he makes a habit of visiting Virgil on his lunch break; years away from each other to find the other man teaching in the same city as he was, is, after all, quite a nice thing to discover. He sees Roman many times over those few weeks, but never once speaks to him beyond a far too intimate twenty seconds of eye contact that seemed much, much longer. 

But four weeks into their little dinner dates, Virgil says with a soft chuckle “A couple of my students seem to have taken a liking to you, Lo.” Logan raises his eyebrow and then glances down at his dark shirt and work trousers as if to say _‘really, me?’_ Virgil laughs softly, bringing the cup of coffee to his lips and sipping slightly, nodding as he swallows then rests the cup down on the floor where he’s sat cross-legged. “I had twenty-one questions with a very interested redhead.” Logan’s heart thunders sixty times faster than his average at the mention. “He wanted to know who you were, where you’re from, how long we’d known each other, by the end of it I was almost endeared, told him I admire his enthusiasm but he really doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Because I’m in my thirties?” Logan asks, amused. 

“Oh, that won’t bother him, believe me, I have that class first thing on a Monday morning and one thing Roman is not, is coy when it comes to older men, I’m just happy _I’m_ not his type; no, I told him that unless he’s a textbook you probably would not be interested.” Logan snorts, pausing the bite he was about to take into his sandwich to laugh a little, shaking his head. “Am I wrong?”

“Not entirely, but I’m not quite the same person I was in college, you know.”

“Mhm,” Virgil takes a bite out of his sandwich and hums in thought. “Would you?” 

“Would I what?”

“ _‘I’m not the same as I was in college,’_ he says, would you date him, moron, if he was your age?”

“It’s a big enough _‘if’_ for me to say I have no idea, besides he’s practically a stranger to me.” 

“Probably for the best, if classroom talk is anything to go off, he’d eat you up and spit you out for breakfast, might as well jump off a cliff...it’s an easier death.” Logan quirks an eyebrow, now mildly interested in whatever conversations Virgil’s been hearing. “I shouldn’t gossip.”

“But you want to?”

“Not really, I like to think I create a space for my students to talk freely, even if occasionally I wish they would talk a little _less_ freely.” He sips his coffee again. “Speaking of, I’ve got a class in ten, could you help me with the rubbish?” 

Logan helps tidy up. On his way out, half talking into the room to bid Virgil goodbye, he turns around and walks straight into another body, staring up just a little into an amused smile and soft brown eyes. “Fancy pair of glasses and you still can’t see where you’re going?” The elder man swears the whole ground attempts to swallow him up as he stares at Roman. 

“S-sorry,” he stammers, stepping out of the way. Inside he hears Virgil laughing, and internally he cusses his old friend out. 

\--

The next time he meets Roman is not in the university. 

Saturday night at the Nox club down in a small sect of town is drag queen night; Logan is not a drag queen, but he enjoys the show and the music and the alcohol, like any other 35-year-old who is single and works a mildly tedious freelance job that brings a lot of money and not much else. 

He leans against a table with a fireball whiskey in one hand and a slight grin on his face as he watches the queens sing and dance, caught up in the euphoria whilst a crowd of men and women on the dance floor make use of their Saturday before Sunday eats them hollow and Monday brings them exhaustion. 

He’s just about finished the glass when he feels hands on his hips. “Now there’s something I didn’t expect to see,” Logan inhales sharply, eyes wide at the deep voice that’s whispered against his ear. “Logan right?” The hands leave him, under the guise that the redhead was in fact, just squeezing past, as instead, he leans against the table. He looks like a model, really, the contours of his face defined under layers of makeup with glitter shining against his ridiculously clear skin, his hair curling down the nape of his neck and against his shoulders. His eyes bore right into Logan, who feels suddenly rather vulnerable under the student’s gaze. 

“Roman, right?” He replies like there isn’t suddenly a lump in his throat the size of a tennis ball. 

“Correct, can I buy you a drink?” Logan’s mouth opens and closes, until he finally shakes his head, his cheeks burning under the lights of the room. This man is at least a decade younger than him, he doubts he’d even be able to keep up somehow. But the redhead grins at him with a sense of mischief, takes his hand and pulls. The elder man wants to protest, insisting that really this is a game he doesn’t want to play, but amongst the throes of moving bodies, he finds himself content pressed to Roman’s chest. His breath catches in his throat, not much of a dancer, but the taller man guides him with his hands and the adrenaline of his heart beating so fast in his chest sways with the alcohol coursing through his veins; and he dances. 

Roman is taller in heels, and not taking no for an answer. Shrouded by what feels like a million other dancers, his eyes close and Roman grips his hips demandingly, and for a moment it’s just the two of them, lust-drunk and giddy on the energy of the room. He feels his body heat in response to the proximity of another man who is certainly not unattractive, and somewhere in the back of his mind he reminds himself that he’s going to be in his forties before Roman has touched thirty, but for some reason that truly doesn’t matter in that brief second where all he can feel is Roman’s hips pressed to his own and the burning taste of whiskey on his own tongue. 

When they part at the end of the song Logan feels lonely and lost, the second that body is drifting from his own his stomach twists in a sensation that reminds him how utterly alone he is in life. But that isn’t fair to Roman, who has so much life left to live, who shouldn’t get caught up in Logan’s need to feel alive. He steps forward, staggering slightly under the weight of three glasses of whiskey and the sensation of Roman’s hands pressing too tightly against his solar plexus. He shakes his head, breathless, but the other man only takes his hand once more and smiles under the club lights. “Satiate me, if you have the appetite if nothing else.” 

Logan reminds himself that he has never been and never intends to be _that_ guy, who preys on youthful men for the sake of filling the hole that mundanity has created. The music swallows up anything else Roman has to say, so he just raises his eyebrows, like he intends to take what he wants no matter what Logan has to say on the matter. It’s exhilarating, it’s been a while since anyone looked at Logan like that. Probably not since he was Roman’s age himself. 

He lets Roman pull him away from the crowds, into the bathroom that’s dimly lit. The place is clean, this club has its reputation but it’s nothing like the seedy bars of Logan’s youth. Although a light in the corner is in desperate need of a new bulb, as it flickers, casting shadows across the redhead’s face as he leans down and claims the elder man’s lips in his own, pushing forward.

His back hits the door of the cubicle stall, and he stumbles inside. The click of the lock solidifies his fate and in the darkened lights he can see Roman staring down at him, lips parted, breathless, before their lips meet again. Logan doesn’t think too hard, doesn’t need too once the younger man rests his lips delicately to his neck before chewing out his resolve in a hard bite. He shakes with a soft noise of want curling almost silently from his lips. Roman ground his hips into Logan’s stomach and the next thing he knows he’s on his knees. 

The sound of a belt undoing had never perked Logan’s ears so forcefully before, his hand coming up to his mouth to curb the audible response to the sight of Roman undoing his zipper with his teeth. He can feel his breath ghosting the sensitive half-hardness confined in his underwear, Logan is trembling. His resolve shatters along with his reservation when Roman’s mouth envelopes him, taking him down with an intense determination that causes a muffled gasp of arousal, shifting his hips shallowly into Roman’s mouth.

He comes not long after someone else enters the bathroom, far less quiet than themselves in their own drunken haze of lust, and Logan barely silences the hollow sob of pleasure that rips from him as Roman swallows him with practised ease. For a moment Logan feels like his body is not his own, that somehow he’d travelled back in time a good decade to a more youthful version of himself keeping quiet whilst bent over the sink of a filthy public bathroom. He’s reminded of this, right before his knees start shaking and the perpetual backache sinks in on him again. “Shit,” he mutters, tucking himself back into his pants. Roman laughs, it’s a musical and lighthearted sound, and he presses a soft kiss to Logan’s hips before rising to his feet to kiss him slowly again. His tongue slides against the elder’s, and once more he finds himself shaking, this time under the taste of his own bitter fluid on someone else’s tongue. 

“We didn’t use a condom,” he mutters, the realisation sudden and horrifying. 

“Sorry, I was desperate.”

“Don’t you go apologising, I should’ve remembered.” 

Roman laughs, finding his distress amusing in some hollow sort of way. “Are you clean? Tested recently?” Logan’s cheeks puff out with his sigh, resisting the urge to slap this man on the upside of his head with his flippancy. 

“Yes, I am, I’d definitely know by now.” That says all there needs to be said really about his life, routine and not much passion, let alone in this sense. The height of his excitement comes from lunch with Virgil, and that couldn’t be more platonic if he’d tried. Roman grins at him like he’d just been told he’s right about something, and the other man decides he doesn’t want to know. On the other side of their cubicle stall there’s a low thud and Logan is distinctly reminded they are not alone. “I should go,”

“Will I see you again?” Roman asks, unlocking the door.

“I doubt I’d be able to escape you if I tried.” He’s not wrong. 

\--

It was somehow hard looking Virgil in the eyes the next time he saw him, they don’t talk about Roman but Logan has this gnawing sense of guilt eating him whole that he can’t seem to shake. The dancer notices, seeing how restless and fidgety his friend is, and the way he eyes the door with a jumpiness that even for someone like Logan, is a little beyond his usual behaviours. “Everything alright specs?” He asks, following the man’s line of sight with absent concentration. 

“Sure, course,” Logan replies, jumping in the spot he’s sat, his cheeks flushing a crimson hue. Virgil drops it, not wanting to press the matter. 

\--

The next time he sees Roman, Logan’s gaze lingers five seconds, before he turns around and leaves the club, his heart hammering in his chest. For some reason, he wants to cry. 

\--

He’s sat in the dance studio again on a Monday afternoon, two days after running away from Roman in the club. He doesn’t know if the redhead had seen him, but he didn’t follow after him and that’s the most important. “So, I was listening in on a conversation the other day,” Virgil starts the conversation, sitting down on the floor with fluent grace. He’s a very long man, long legs, long arms, long torso, everything about him is stretched thin and tight over his bones, right over the sharp cheekbones and jawline, down to the prominent knuckles of his long fingers. But he controls himself well, Logan has never mastered that, he’s always tripping over his own body like it’s not really a part of him, but some disconnected extension, a prison he learns to pilot. 

“Oh?” He asks, a little jumpy. 

“So, I’m sat teaching the third years, we take a break because half of them are dead on their feet, they all wander off into their little friendship groups to sit down and Roman Prince, who is not nearly as quiet as he thinks...” Logan knows _that_ but his name brings a pit of dread and Logan is getting tired of blushing over this man. _Man,_ barely, he’s not even twenty-five, that _maybe_ could class as a man. “...Was talking about one of his late-night escapades whilst a group of girls hung off every word like he came down from the heavens to tell him this story.” Roman’s got a way with his words, and his mouth in general. Logan wonders if his self-hatred is as utterly viewable on his face as he feels it is. 

“And?” Virgil takes a long sip from his cup of coffee.

“And I think nothing new really, even if I am as utterly disinterested in my student’s sex life as any teacher, it’s the only gossip I get in my thirties.” He takes a bite off his sandwich, chews far too quickly and swallows the bite as though he’s in a rush. “I wasn’t interested until we reach the end of the story that I’m half listening too and get this, Roman Prince, king of one night stands, has been looking for this guy ever since.” He pauses, takes a sip from his coffee and places it down. “And _why_ am I telling _you_ this?” Logan thinks the ground is cracking underneath him, he sure feels that unstable. “Because one of the girls asked if he’d managed to get a name this time and his eyes locked with mine, I shit you not, I was wondering what _I’d_ done for a moment, and then he grinned, looked away and said with such perfect clarity I thought the entire world was going to shake.” Virgil raises an accusatory finger. “You hooked up with one of my students.” 

_“Fuck,”_ Logan mutters. 

“You can say _that_ again,” He reaches over and slaps the other man on the upside of the head, not enough to hurt, but enough to seem to be pledging to bring some sense of sanity into his skull. “Anyway, you seem to have left an impression, he’s been out every night looking for you, and I get the feeling you’re trying to hide from him.” 

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Hide from Roman? I try to on a regular basis but he sort of appears into thin air just when you think you have some peace and quiet.” Logan nods in agreement, wondering if he’s ever going to have some peace and quiet again, mainly from his own thoughts. Usually thoughts about Roman’s mouth, and his hands, and that mischief that doesn’t seem to falter. “I mean I can’t really talk, were we much different at his age?” 

Virgil was worse than he was. But they both had their fair share of shame; it was a running joke that Logan was more interested in his books than dating, but the truth is every Saturday night like clockwork he’d rock up to the nearest club with his hair seven kinds of messy, a condom and a bottle of poppers in his pocket and spend the evening getting pressed into bathroom tiles, over sinks, and occasionally, if he was lucky, in a warm bed that he could seek refuge in long enough for him to drag back a whole new personality and go home to his own bed. He was lonely then, and he’s lonely now. 

Not much has changed, but now he has a job that keeps him preoccupied so he doesn’t have to think about the fact that, romantically, he has never loved a single person at all. And judging by the thick silver band on Virgil’s finger, he’d drawn the better end of all of this, because he allowed himself to grow, he worked for that. 

“I don’t think he deserves me, no matter what his reasons are,” he replies, finally, taking a deep breath in. 

“You’re not the worst thing to happen to everyone you meet, sure he’s a little on the young side but he’s not stupid, he _acts_ like he is but...he’s not, he’s a very clever and strategical person.” He takes a long sip of coffee and then bites into his sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. “To be honest once Roman has his heart set on something I have never seen him not get his own way.”

That digests onto Logan’s soul with yet another crippling wave of dread, and he decides he does not want to think about the inevitable. 

\--

At the very least, Logan thinks to himself one day, the world is a little better for Roman than it was for him at his age. 

\--

The next time he goes out to the same club on a Thursday evening, he slides a couple of condoms in his wallet just in case, if he has to have any sort of influence on this man he wants at least one good one. He wonders, absently, not because he wants them, where people even get poppers from these days, oddly reminiscent of his late teens and early twenties years. 

He arrives at the club with his dark hair a little messy, and his jeans a little tighter, and his shirt a little less formal, the material soft, baggy, tucked into his jeans. And for a moment, he looks twenty again. With the lines of grief and stress on his face forgone, his hair just as full and the look in his eyes just as determined. 

He wades into the crowds of people and takes a deep breath in, feeling like bait on a hook waiting for a shark to approach. A distinct sense of nervousness that borders on uneasy, and he can’t tell if the after waves of his upbringing are what makes this feel wrong, or maybe the one too many forty-year-olds he slept with in his early twenties. Logan gazes through the crowds of dancers, or swayers, or people really giving it their all; he looks past the man hunched over a table with the distinct sense of unease that signifies a crash, and the silver-haired man with wicked eyes leaning against the bar. He takes in the dancing couple of women who are leaning into each other with youthful smiles of love, and the young man wrapped up in another man’s hands, head leaning against the taller’s shoulder, eyes-closed in a whole different type of ecstasy that most people call romance. He looks past all these nameless faces until he finds the one he’s looking for, dark eyes staring into his own across the room. The redhead lifts a hand, bathed blue in the club lights, and points towards the exit. 

Logan wonders if he has some time for liquid confidence as he steps back towards the entrance, his body poised with all the symptoms of a panic attack, which eases the moment Roman’s hand is on his own. “I’ve been looking for you.” Logan, remembering his conversation with Virgil, finds himself blushing either in embarrassment or because he’s wanted enough to be searched for. 

“I heard,”

“I figured the best way to get your attention was to go through Virgil.”

“Could’ve done without that disappointed look, to be honest,” he gives a weak smile, his hand unflinching as his fingers curl around the other man’s, sliding to fit against him. Hands are an extension of the body, but Logan wishes to be clasped in Roman’s body quite the same way as their palms pressed together. “It’s just you’re...young.”

“Hardly,” Roman snorts, a laugh on his lips. “I’m almost twenty-five, besides, I kind of lost out of the normal progression of growing up.” He tugs Logan’s hand, leading him down the street, the breeze brushes up the elder man’s chest, like a cold caress he’d hate to know. “I’ve been my own dad for the past decade, almost.” He looks up at the sky, he can’t see much of the stars through the clouds, but he looks like he wishes he could. “Sometimes I forget I’m only twenty-four.”

“But you _should_ be twenty-four,” Logan insisted, letting himself be led without any other complaint. “You shouldn’t be with people my age, it’s bad for you.” The younger man laughs softly, rolling his eyes, shaking his head. 

“Logan I can _finally_ make mistakes in my life, I’m going to make them on my own terms and with as much enthusiasm as possible; and if I had a penny for every thirty-year-old man that said those words to me I’d be living in Spain and under sunshine, and I’d never see this _rotting_ city again.” He doesn’t know how to respond to that, he just makes a small noise of surprise at the back of his throat and finds himself stood at the junction where the two main roads intersect. They both stand on the street corner, the cars passing by them as Roman’s eyes survey the right time to cross. Logan stares at him as though he’d just been punched in the stomach so hard that all the air in his body dissipates on his tongue. He sparkles in the headlights of cars, eyes concentrated and dripping in glitter, and that second lasts for hours for Logan, just taking in the tall confidence and studious expression of an act as simple as crossing the road.

When they reach safety on the other side, he tugs at Roman’s hand to grind him to a halt and pulls him into a kiss so firm that he imagines his heart exploding in his chest and the viscera of what remains would be all that is left for Roman to devour. The redhead falters for the first time when they pull away, and the smaller man looks like he doesn’t even know what he’d just done, eyes blinking rapidly and lips parted in some small shock at himself. Roman’s hand tightens in his own, and his pace becomes akin to a drill sergeant intending to make someone walk until they physically can’t any longer. 

Logan struggles to keep up with the younger man, whose dexterity in heels is incredibly impressive to him, who never could get a hang of the damn things. 

He’s barely stepped through the front door of Roman’s flat when his back is pressed into it so hard his head jolts against the wood. He imagines himself splintering open under the force, and then the soothing but incessant touch of Roman’s lips press to his own and he dissolves under the pressure, hands gripping the fabric of the taller’s shirt. “I brought condoms,” he uttered weakly, not sure what else to say when they parted. His body feels like it’s disconnecting the second that touch isn’t on him. 

“So did I, I guess together we’ll have enough,” his grin is not mischievous, it’s nothing short of wicked. Logan’s lips part and all that comes out is a grating noise softened by his shock. Roman’s hand pulls him, and he follows like a lamb to slaughter. 

Roman’s touch burns him like a brand and freezes him in ecstasy at the same time. He tugs Logan out of his clothes in practised rhythms and bites down on his lip so hard that the moan that rips from him echoes off of the walls. He’s sinking like a stone to the bottom of the river as his shoes fall onto the carpet and his shirt hangs without display off his shoulders, slipping down his arms with the buttons undone to expose his pale chest. Roman leans down and bites at his neck, sinks in his skin like he can’t imagine Logan leaving unmarked. Logan does not, suddenly, want to leave unmarked. 

“You’re too skinny,” the redhead mutters, face buried against the tight skin of Logan’s stomach. “I’ll feed you after this, you’re basically anaemic.” Logan wants to explain that you don’t have to be skinny to be anaemic, but his head feels dizzy from the hot breath coming out just above the space where his hard cock tents desperately in his underwear. Then he almost blacks out as he realizes that Roman isn’t about to throw him onto the street once the deed is done. 

He flops back against the bed again as his underwear and jeans are tugged free of his person, leaving him mostly naked with his body pricking with sweat in the lamplight of this room. His shirt, half-forgotten about, still wraps around his arms like the only cling to a lack of exposure he has. The tension boils in him as Roman’s tongue rolls up the inside of his thigh, tasting his skin; he wonders if the other man is a cannibal in some intrusive way because he looks starved and Logan feels like a meal.

“I want to fuck you,” Roman hums, leaning up over his body, still mostly clothed and making Logan feel impossibly small. “Okay?”

 _“Please,_ ” It’s all he can think to say, voice catching strangled in his throat, his body crumbling under the pressure of the other man’s. He captures his lips in a kiss hot enough to break a fever, and his hands grip at Roman’s shirt, tugging like he could miracle it away. The young man laughs, softly, breathlessly, endeared by his actions as he leans up to tug off his shirt. He has the body of a dancer, not firm or soft, but some miraculous blend between the two, with lightly defined muscles that have Logan, suddenly understanding starvation, wanting to sink his teeth and nails into. He watches Roman undress, leaning up on his elbows to watch him unzip his boots and slide out of them, knocking a couple of inches off his height but being no less imposing. His eyes trail over the student’s body, watches him step out of his jeans and underwear and eyes his cock with the taste of his own saliva on his tongue. He remembers his shirt, and finally tugs it off his arms, discarding it.

“How do you prefer it?” Logan’s cheeks flush, and it’s a blush that swells to his chest, burning red as he heaves his body up to crawl onto his hands and knees, his head resting on his folded arms with his eyes lidded; he isn’t intending to be seductive, but Roman’s hushed whisper of _“fuck,”_ sends a jolt through him.

In the moments of jostling to grab the lube and a condom, Logan feels insecurity beat through his body but the anxiety is satiated by Roman’s mouth against the back of his thighs, making him jolt forward with a whimpered gasp for air, his hand gripping his own hair by way of grounding himself from the sensation of tongue and teeth, feeling like his mouth is pressed to an open nerve. His cock aches between his legs, otherwise untouched and utterly without satiation, his whole being trembling with desire. “Please,” he gasps out again, silenced by the feeling of slick fingers to his entrance. His knees spread apart, hips rocking back. Roman’s hand presses to his lower back, documenting and furthering the arch to his spine. 

He catches the feeling of Roman’s mouth on so many parts of his body, easing him into insanity as he licks to sweat off his skin and tells him he’s so _very_ pretty. Logan cannot remember the last time anyone called him pretty, and if there’s an equivalent of orgasm that begins and ends in the heart, he would’ve had it then. But then Roman doesn’t stop with his sweet nothings, leaning over his body, stretching him open as he calls him “baby” and “darling” and “sweetheart” amongst gentle questions about how he’s feeling.

For a one night stand, he sure seems to have a lot of heart. Could it be true even if they’ve both slept with one too many men, some whose names they never caught, most never seen again, too many starting and ending in a dirty cubicle in the public toilets, does not mean they ever cared about them any less. You can’t love a stranger for more than an hour, but the reverence one has for another’s body comes in the knowledge that despite that, you must still respect them as human beings.

Even if neither of them expected respect in return. 

Or maybe, this isn’t a one night stand, and Logan really has landed himself in a whole lot more trouble than he thought. Tangled in lust however he doesn’t think about this long, instead, he is preoccupied with the fingers sliding out of him and then pushing back in with more and more force each time. If he were an instrument, Roman would have known exactly how to play him without lessons, because he’s shaking and gasping and yearning for release in a way he’d not felt in many years. It feels _wrong_ , it feels _wonderful,_ it feels like his heart is going to give out. Maybe he _is_ getting too old for this. 

Roman sinks into him with a hollow sound of pleasure, and Logan can’t see his face but he imagines that it’s beautiful. He drags his hips back and presses in sending sparks flying through Logan’s body. His own hands knot weakly in the bedsheets below him, dark hair sticking to his face. He isn’t prepared for how fragile he feels as Roman grips his hips and uses his body like a toy, unrelenting, with building pressure, and every time Logan can almost see a peak, he slows and leans down to kiss the smaller man’s shoulder with a smirk that he can feel through his sweat-slicked skin. 

“You’re so pretty,” Roman mutters to him, hand sliding up his skin in reverence, Logan can barely catch his breath as he lifts his head. “I kind of want to make you cry,” that should not have his half-hard cock hardening once more but he rolls his hips back and grips the sheets below him with some sick determination that he’s suddenly filled with. “A masochist then?” Oh, he’d _have_ to be to survive, the only way Logan can love his own _hatred_ of himself would be if he got off on it. 

The student doesn’t touch his cock, but he does run a firm hand through Logan’s hair and tug. The noise he makes is only half of pleasure, mostly it stings and he voices discomfort that he doesn’t want the other man to take heed of. Roman doesn’t either, though his eyes watch Logan with firm observance and the man knows he is in no danger at all. He fucks into him, nails dragging down his curving spine, savouring every sound that their bodies make together, from gasped pants to the sound of skin pressing to skin. 

Then he stills, pulling the other man up to press his back to his chest. Logan can feel his own heartbeat hammer alongside Roman’s, resting back with his cock buried deep inside him, his knees spread apart as he pants for air. His head leans back against the other man’s body, catching his long since stolen breath. Roman presses a soft kiss to his shoulder, he sucks lightly at the skin, massaging it with his tongue and teeth, before resting his forehead down and rocking his hips shallowly. For a moment there is no frantic need, just two men catching their breath in the glow of the room, slowly seeking pleasure. 

The younger man wraps a hand around the other, tugging him to full hardness once more, Logan’s breathing startles the silence, rolling his hips gently, but not quite seeking a release. He’s tired, Roman realises, and it makes him smile with some level of fondness as he nips at his skin. His hand pulls away to squeeze Logan’s hips. “Lie down on your back, sweetheart.” The elder man eases up with a soft noise, the blush returning to his cheeks at the pet name. The slide of Roman’s cock drawing out of him has his eyes blown open, obeying the gentle command and lying back.

He feels far more exposed, his legs spread with Roman staring down at him with this look in his eyes like he’s trying to commit every inch of exposed skin to memory. He draws Logan’s knees up to his chest with a firm grip to the back of his thighs and sinks into him again, eyes falling shut in instantaneous relief. He bends himself forward, one hand sliding to press into the pillow space beside Logan’s head whilst the other takes his cock in against his palm and strokes slowly, the skin dragging as his hips pull out and push back in with a force that, to Logan, feels more powerful than a tsunami. His ankles lock around the other’s back and draws him closer, a cacophony of noises tearing past his lips as he arches with the touch. He feels drenched in sweat, one hand wrapping around the wrist caging against his head just to hold it, to feel the pad of his thumb against the tensed muscles. Roman takes the hand in his own and pins it to the bed, Logan only moans in response. His other hand presses to the back of Roman’s neck, reaching up distractedly to untangle the hair from the bun it’s being trapped into loosely. Roman’s eyes flutter closed as the hair unknots itself around Logan’s fingertips, sighing as it occasionally catches. Logan grips his hair gently, not steering, but asking, _please._ The younger man answers his question by kissing him again, then sinking his teeth down with the same fierceness as his cock stretching him open. He curves under pleasure, his body splitting and cracking in his imagination, where he almost sees white-hot heat splitting open his veins. He moans without care for a moment, as Roman’s efforts double and the crash of his orgasm has a noise loud, high-pitched and without embarrassment curling from his tongue. The heat in his nerves coils over and over, wrapping itself around his body, and spilling over Roman’s hand to land against his skin. He whimpers, swears once more he’s about to cry, but not from guilt or fear, just the knowledge that nobody had _ever_ made him feel like that. 

Roman drags his hips back, slides back into him, enjoying the way Logan squirms, his thighs trembling as he legs and hands untangle and he chokes on his own breath. He coughs, barely able to breathe. 

The student pulls out of him, kneeling up and leaning back, drinking in the image of Logan breathing in deeply, unaware of the fact he’d forgotten to inhale until his return to reality had stabilised. His lips quirk in a half-smile as he meets Logan’s eyes which are lidded in his arousal, come drenching his sweat-slicked skin. He peels off the condom, tucking his hair behind his ears as he leans back over Logan’s body, leaning down to kiss him gently. Logan’s hands trail over him, feeling the lean muscles with a sharp inhale of breath. He nips at Roman’s bottom lip, spurring him on as the redhead wraps a hand around himself, jerking his own cock over Logan’s body. The elder man, gathering whatever stamina he has left, grips the wrist and guides it away, letting Roman hold himself up. The kiss breaks and he stares right into the man hovering over him as he jerks his cock quickly, firmly, gathering precum against his palm to increase the slide. He watches him come, feels the warm liquid land against his skin. It feels warm, but not just physically. He’s not sure what about the act of being marked like property has his heart fluttering in his chest, but it does regardless. 

They both lie down, sticky with sweat, breathless, aching. The whole room smells like sex and come and bodies doing what bodies are made to do. And Logan’s heart, which had not rested a single beat since he met this man, finally stills to a regular pace in the afterglow of the room. 

They shower, or that was the plan, but Logan loves the feeling of soap on his skin and more so when the other man’s slick torso is pressed to his back, grinding his cock into the curve of his ass until he releases between their bodies. He tilts his head to the side to capture a kiss more tongue and spit than anything else before Roman is jerking him off again.

By the time he’s sat at the kitchen table, wearing the redhead’s baggiest shirt and nothing else, he’s so spent he worries for a long second his legs are going to give out. Then he sits down, the seat of the chair feeling strange against his bare ass, and he’s fed, he doesn’t think his stomach had ever growled so much more greater than the smell of onions hitting the oil at quarter to midnight. He eats sleepily but doesn’t manage all of the food, filling up fast on his tiredness. Roman tugs him down onto his lap before he can move to put his plate on the side, he buries his face in his neck, closing his eyes, Roman eats with one hand and rubs Logan’s back with the other. The shirt rides up as he does that, but he feels like he’s passed the stage of being embarrassed by his own nudity.

They leave the half-empty plates on the side and retire to bed. “Tired, baby?” Logan has gone so many years without this sort of treatment, he can’t tell if it makes him feel younger or older. “I’ll make sure you get a good night’s sleep,” Logan’s eyes are half-closed when Roman’s hands push his shirt up the moment he's laid on the bed. He doesn’t even know if he’s got anymore left in him as hands gently massage his thighs. A soft sigh ghosts his lips, eyes opening enough to look down at the other man with a small smile. An exhausted hand cards through the red hair as Roman takes his mostly soft cock in his mouth and sucks, slowly easing him to hardness. He has no more energy than to whimper, his fingers twitching weakly in the red locks tangled around them. 

His hips jerk just a little, his eyes falling shut as his flushed skin heats up under his own tired arousal. Roman doesn’t tease him, fingers drawing gentle circles to his skin as his mouth eases him through the waves of ecstasy. 

“Ro...Ro…” he gasps out, the touch tightening with his own tension. He hangs on an edge that seems to stretch for miles, for a second he feels like he’s going to hang there forever. Then he crashes, with barely anything left to offer as his exhaustion mingles with the vertigo of his orgasm, he feels like he’s falling and falling, and then he takes a deep breath in. “Fuck,” he utters, capturing Roman’s grin as the other man lies beside him. “Wh-what about you?” His speech is slurred. Roman kisses the top of his head. 

“Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow comes, Roman has class, but before he departs he takes his time slamming Logan over the kitchen counter, tugging at his hair, biting at his skin and pressing into him over and over until he shakes.

“Do you have work today?” He asks when they're done, half holding the elder man up. Logan shakes his head. 

“I work from home, usually, but I’ve not a large workload.” He looks exhausted and exhilarated. “I can go, though.”

Roman shakes his head. “I finish class at twelve, you don’t have to do anything, but if you want I have a box under the bed you might find interesting, condoms are in the top drawer.” He brushes out his hair and pulls on his usual dance attire, leaving Logan still wearing his shirt and looking rather exhausted on his bed. He wants to study the curves and angles to Roman’s body for the rest of the day. Doesn’t want him to leave and doesn’t want _to_ leave. “Oh, should I let Virgil know you won’t be able to make lunch? Don’t want him waiting all afternoon.” 

Logan curses under his breath. “He is never going to let me live this down.” 

“How do you think _I_ feel?” 

“Pretty pleased with yourself.” 

Roman laughs, cupping Logan’s jaw and leaning down to kiss him warmly, he nips at Logan’s lip, before leaving one last quick peck. “See you later old man.” 

He has a shower, and then promptly passes out for a couple more hours. His hair is tousled and a little knotted, he runs a tired hand through it before sliding down next to the bed to tug out a medium-sized box. His eyes widened a little, his breath catching in his throat as he took in all the smaller boxes inside. Plugs, beads, cuffs, vibrators (plural), dildos (also plural), and what looked like rope. As he pulls some out, he finds neatly at the bottom an assortment of folded outfits. He’d never quite gotten around to things like this. He pulls up a thin little thing made up of black straps, less of an outfit and more of a decoration. He pulls off his shirt and lays it on the bed, holding the thing up and trying to figure out what on earth goes where. He struggles with it, but once he has it on, the straps lightly squeeze at his upper thighs and under his ass. It crosses over his stomach and chest, up over his collarbones and shoulders like a bodysuit that covers absolutely nothing. He pulls the shirt back on, folding the rest of the outfits away.

The sensation of the fabric stirs him a little, but he knows that Roman will be exhausting him again when he gets back. He’d never used a plug before, and his hand lands on a box that is decorated with a picture of a jewelled one. He places that on the bed too. The rest he organised neatly back in the box, pushing it back under the bed. He opens the box with slightly shaking hands, sliding it out of the little plastic tray and holding it in his hand. He’s taken cock before, this doesn’t seem like it would be much different. He fumbles around in the drawer for a condom, ripping the wrapper open with his teeth before smoothly sliding it over the plug. He kneels on the bed, taking a deep breath in as he rests his torso down, pouring lube onto his fingers, before slowly pushing one in. 

He takes his time stretching himself open, teasing himself a little, his cock twitches at intervals but he pays it little to no mind. When he can finally push the plug in, he breathes a slight sigh before sitting down, rocking his hips slightly as the plug presses into him. He squeezes his own cock lightly through the sensation, taking a slow breath in as he clenches around it. 

He touches himself distractedly, without the need or the want for release, and he does so thinking about how there’s an entire world out there that he doesn’t need to think about. They don’t know him, he doesn’t know them. The world keeps turning and Logan feels like his world is all turned over and collapsing in on itself. He spreads his knees a bit, squeezing the head of his cock and rocks his hips into the touch. 

When the door opens again, he sits up straight like a dog hearing it’s owner coming home. Roman comes into view, lit by the afternoon sun and a stunning smile. He cups Logan’s jaw in his hands and kisses him again. His hands slide up the shirt covering the elder man’s body, and when his fingertips catch the straps, his gaze turns more lustful. “Stand up.” Logan obeys, squeezing his thighs together. His cock tents in the material of the shirt as his hands fall to his sides. 

The dancer pulls the shirt up over his head, eyes taking much of him in. Logan, decorated, like a piece of furniture dressed up for company, nothing more or less than an object. Without command, he turns around to show off the plug. Roman’s hands grip his hips, pulling him closer and sliding his hands up the other man’s sides, fingertips catching against the straps. 

“Pretty,” he says simply, and Logan’s knees feel weak. 

He’s pushed down face-first onto the bed, his cock trapped between his own body and the bedsheets as Roman’s body holds him down. His mouth sucks bruises against his neck, his body rocking down against him. Logan feels like a scratching post, no more or less, and it feels like a retribution in some strange way. Getting what he deserves but in the most pleasurable way possible. 

His hips are pulled up, the dancer's fingers pressing the plug deeper so that Logan squirms and gasps, rocking himself back into the touch. “You’re so eager, it’s like you’ve never been fucked before.” Logan has been fucked many times before, and it’s always about desperation and validation, that much will never change about him. The plug is eased out and replaced with Roman’s cock, he fucks himself back against it until he sees white and his knuckles tighten against the bedsheets. His untouched dick twitches between his legs as white streaks the sheets underneath him. The younger man laughs, not cruelly or un-cruelly, but with a distinct sense of mocking. 

Then he slams his hips into Logan’s and pays little mind to the tears of overstimulation in his eyes, too busy focusing on the pleasured but tortured broken moans. 

When Roman _finally_ comes, he’s half-sobbing, and it’s both a sense of great sadness and a wonderful reprieve when he stills. 

The student takes him in his arms like he’s the delicate one, pressing kisses to his skin, carding his fingers through his hair. He tells him he’s good and sweet and pretty, and Logan just feels like he wants to dissolve into the cracks in the floorboard. He’s over thirty years old, he shouldn’t _still_ crave this, surely? The dancer can tell he’s embarrassed, but there’s nothing he can do but persuade him he’s perfect. And to Roman, Logan may very well be. 

“Come on, let’s get a shower,” Logan is crying silently, but he allows himself to be pulled up. “There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just the way you are.” His careful hands untangle the decoration from Logan’s skin and his lips press gentle kisses to the smooth area of his shoulder, his nose brushing against freckles. “Talk to me, what’s going on in that brain of yours?”

“I don’t know,” Logan whispers, skin flushed. “I feel like I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“With me, or in general?”

“Both,” a static silence follows. 

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” he leans down and kisses him gently. “I’m an adult, and you’re an adult, and you’re not as old as you think you are, I think you need reminding of that.” His kisses brush the freckled cheeks and gently press to the tip of Logan’s nose. The blue-eyed man can half see in blurred backgrounds without his glasses but he sees Roman clear as day. Is he falling in love? Or is this just lust with convoluted steps. “And you look nice with that on, you look nice smiling, you look nice crying and you can’t run away from your entire life, and I don’t want you to run away from me.” 

Logan’s breath runs short and he’s going to cry again. “I don’t want to run away,” he utters weakly, tone distressed and scratching. “But you scare me.” Still, his hands grip Roman’s body like he’s the only tether to living he has, his one link to the real world, his anchor in rough seas. He doesn’t know if he loves him, he thinks that is probably impossible, but not for a moment does he want to leave him. 

“Then stay.” 

Logan stays. 

\--

Roman makes space in his life for Logan. Logan grabs an axe and carves through his own barriers for him. Virgil finds it all very amusing. He feels like a spectator in a drama that he can’t seem to switch off; and though he had his reservations, on both of their behalves, he almost thinks they _could_ be good for each other. 

A month after the longest weekend of Logan’s life, where he had so many realisations about himself he thought he was about to emerge from a cocoon as a completely different person, he waits for Roman on the street corner near the university. The rain is coming down hard and he holds an umbrella over his head. Roman approaches him, half squealing half-laughing as the rain tangles in his red hair. He’s smiling as he darts under the umbrella and kisses Logan warmly, without a care for who sees. Logan’s breath stammers, his cheeks flush. A bus drives past, headlights glowing in the downpour, neither of them really see it until water splashes up against both of them, and then Logan is laughing too. 

“Come,” he takes Roman’s hand and they both run, Logan more so out of breath down the city streets until he’s fumbling with his keys. He opens his front door, the umbrella clattering to the ground as Roman’s hands push him back against the closed wood. Their bodies, soaked, press to each other and their skin is trapped in an uncomfortable sort of stimulation. 

“Come,” Roman grins, kicking off shoes and pulling at clothes until Logan is tripping and falling onto the living room couch with the younger’s body bearing down on him in a comfortable weight. Despite this, he feels utterly weightless, curling his fingers through wet hair and releasing each other from the confines of their clothes. “I adore you,” the redhead utters with a pleased expression, his hands dragging the length of Logan’s body to dip underneath his damp underwear. 

“I love you,” Logan replies honestly, bringing him into a kiss. “Fuck,” Roman bites down at his lip and seizes into the words and touch and whispered sweet nothings. The rain pours outside, hammering at the windows and they’re shivering with both heat and cold in a dimly lit living room. The world outside doesn’t matter. 

They grind their hips into each other’s fists before they spill over and into each other like water overflowing from a glass. Logan whimpers, long and loud and with the shape of Roman’s name, his voice cracks, and he’s captured in a kiss. 

They rest together on the couch, catching their breath with the elder man’s palm documenting the curve to his lover’s spine. The younger smiles dotingly at him, twirling his hair around his fingers. “Did you mean it? That you love me?” 

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.” Roman kisses him softly, with a smile on his lips to be tasted with equal, calm exuberance. A soft laugh brushes between them, and soon they’re giggling. At that moment things are less complicated, the earth turns beneath their bodies and their hearts beat in their chests; Logan is not thirty-five, Roman is not a university student who is too restless to truly love. For a moment in it all, they are just two men in love like they’re both reaching twenty and have nothing but recklessness and their hearts to offer. 

Logan cooks them dinner in Roman’s hoodie and his underwear but he keeps getting distracted by the warmth of his hugs and the softness of his kisses and how he wants to cry with joy or fear or both. But thankfully, he doesn’t find himself too distracted, his body reaching its capacity for how much it can be pulled and pushed and ripped apart. His heart might be too, but that’s not something for him to consider right now. 

He eats slowly, occasionally catching Roman’s eyes and smiling like they have some secret, and maybe they do. After dinner, he washes the dishes with arms around his waist, resting against his slightly bloated stomach but with no pressure. Logan bows his head and accepts a kiss to the nape of his neck whilst his warm, soap-covered hands wash their meal away. “I love you,” he says again as though he can hardly believe it. 

“I love you too,” Roman replied, barely sure if he knows what love is but along for the ride anyway. Logan knows this, he doesn’t really think that the other man loves him but he thinks that he could, and that’s really enough for him. 

They curl up in bed together with Logan’s head resting over his boyfriend’s heart, feeling the thud warm to his fingertips as his eyes close. He breathes in, long and deep, savouring the seconds that he wants to map out in his mind for eternity, and play over and over again. These mere moments of existence with someone who is silent, and you too are silent, yet still, you communicate...those are moments he wishes he’d known to live for. Those are the moments that he thinks that long after Roman is gone, he will live for, perhaps to mend his inevitable broken heart. 

\--

Two nights later Roman shows up on his doorstep with a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates. “What’s the occasion?” his partner replies with a small smile of confused thanks. 

“Do we need one?” He places the flowers in a jar on the kitchen windowsill. He knows he'll have to watch them die and that twists something melancholic inside of him, but he thanks Roman anyway as the box of chocolates rests on the table, leaning up to kiss him slow and long. He feels like their time is running out like he has until the last petal falls from those flowers to say his goodbyes. Logan doesn't know why he feels like this, he doesn't want to know either. His hands find Roman's chest and for once he does the pushing, his teeth catching the younger man's bottom lip as he makes sure that should he leave, he at least remembers him. 

Because he's never going to forget Roman. He's sure that he'll feel like he's dying when he finally leaves. 

He pushes the student to his own bedroom and presses him down into the mattress, watches Roman's eyes grow wide as he bites down on his skin and holds his stronger body underneath his own. The other man does not resist, breathless as Logan knocks all the breath from his body by sinking down on his cock and pinning his wrists beneath his own. For a moment, Logan tastes control, just for his frantic second of knowledge that one day Roman will leave, so he might as well give him all he has to give. Every experience he has yet to live, he wants this restless man to take. He wants no regrets on his own part. Except for loving him at all, that's something everyone regrets at some point. 

Logan's getting tired of feeling like he's going to cry. 

\--

Two weeks later he leans against the brick wall on the corner of the street and stares up at the sky. He closes his eyes, the rain drips against his face. When a handful of tears join them it's nothing that anyone can notice. 

By the time Roman has reached the same spot, he's stopped crying, and he doesn't want to be there at all. He shakes his head when the redhead approaches him. "I'm sorry," he says, his hands shaking. He'd manage to eat himself whole. "I can't..." Roman reaches for his hand with the softest look in his eyes, like a kicked puppy, his heart looks abused or what of it can be seen. "I can't do this to you."

"Then don't go." 

"You need a life, Roman."

"I have one, with you." Logan looks like he'd just eaten his whole heart for breakfast. He had really, tangling himself up in 'what-if's' until he's fairly certain he'd found the truth to life the same way a madman might. Roman shakes his head and takes his hands in his own, his lips pulled into a smile that is both ecstatic and melancholic. "Logan, you're the smartest man I've ever met, but you're being an idiot right now," the elder man opens his mouth and closes it again, a sigh on his lips as he nods in agreement. "I do love you, I'm not just saying it, not just because you make me feel so very alive, but because you are the first person I have ever been excited to see, and you don't take me for granted, and maybe one day I won't love you, or one day you won't love me, but that day is not today and I am not letting you walk away." He presses a kiss to his lover's forehead gently. "You don't owe the world anything, but you owe me something very simple, tell me the truth and only the truth."

"I love you."

"I know," he tugs his hands. "We're having pie and chips for dinner."

"Homemade?"

"Of course, what do you take me for?"

\--

Logan spends two years with Roman. Two of the longest yet shortest years of his life. His only regret is that he spent it always wondering when the other man was going to leave, his own anxieties ate him alive in the end. But he loves him, he understood him in so many ways. He watched him dance and they danced together, they'd meet on street corners, in clubs and run into each other in hallways. He lived with him for a year, and what wasn't spent at the kitchen table or at work was spent in bed. Roman gave him a spark of life, he gave him the knowledge of how his own body works.

But he could never really solve the biggest problem, and that was Logan never thought he was good enough. And no matter what was told to him, how many people said it, how many people approved of their frantic relationship, he never considered himself lovable. 

So when Roman finally left, it didn't come as a surprise to him. 'Fair enough,' he thought. He was never good enough for Roman, but to Roman absolutely no-one else would be good enough again. Logan was inept and emotionally unstable and grovelled for forgiveness for things he hadn't done wrong. He was anxious and flitted between fear and love. But he treated Roman like he was the sun lighting up his sky every morning, he treated him with respect and showed him kindness, and taught him how to look after himself, how to say no and how to accept good things too. To Roman, Logan was a gift he never thought himself lucky enough to receive. 

\--

Logan is three days away from being thirty-nine, he's sat on the large ledge of his living room, a book on his lap and a cup of tea by his feet. He's tired, as he usually is these days, flicking through the pages of his book slowly. He's startled by a sudden ringing, he glances up, listening to the phone buzz and buzz, but his gaze goes back to the book, his eyes taking in the words once more. The phone falls silent, and he's left alone once more. He rarely answers his phone these days, it's usually only ever Virgil anyway, berating him over one thing or another. He has a few minutes of bliss before the noise starts up again, he sighs in irritation and ignores it, reading the same four sentences over and over again until he's sure he's going insane. The noise stops again. 

The man sighs with relief, thumbing the corner of the page as he stares at the sentences before he turns it over. The silence is a welcome reprieve from his life, too much noise exhausts him so much quicker these days. If he thought he'd felt old at thirty-five, being thirty-eight is even worse. He sighs, distracted, as he looks out of the window and for a moment he recalls a memory of Roman tapping at the glass with a grin, waving frantically through it as he came home from his first day of work. His first proper show. Logan had been so proud of him. He turns back to the book but now the words are blurring. He pushes his glasses up his nose, the phone starts to ring again and he grits his teeth, throwing the book on the floor and sitting up to reach for his cup, taking a long sip from the warm beverage. 

He shakes his head and reaching into his glasses to wipe his eyes, the phone goes silent once more and he takes a shuddering breath in, pushing the air in and then out with the same shaky force. He imagines himself drowning because every day he feels like he is. 

When the phone rings again, he jumps down off the ledge and crosses his living room to root through his jacket pocket, finding the offending item and answering the call. "Hello?"

"Heaven's above, the fourth call is what takes you to answer?" Logan's heart stammers in his chest, rooted to the spot. "For a moment, I thought you'd finally had a heart attack or something, maybe all that coffee you drink or..."

"I don't drink it much any more," Logan's voice comes out softer than intended, his eyes falling shut as he drowns in the same deep voice that sounds a little more tired but is otherwise untouched by the time they'd spent apart. "Roman?" His voice comes out cracked. 

"Hey, you should, turn around maybe." Logan turns towards his window, the phone hovering by his ear, and stood outside tapping at the glass with a grin, waving frantically through it, is Roman. His phone drops onto the floor and he feels his heart twist in on itself, he thinks he's going to be sick, or scream, or cry. He seems to like crying even more now. He opens the window and stares at his former lover like he's crazy. Roman ends the phone call. "See the thing is, Logan, when you first met me I doubt you thought anything of me at all, I was just a person in passing but I latched on to you because I could see that you were _miserable_ , and you looked at me like you were fascinated." He leans against the window with a small smile. "But the first time I saw you I got this rush of energy I'd never felt before and it wasn't love at first sight, but it was infatuation like I'd never really felt before." He swallows a little. "I thought I needed to move on because I thought you already had, but it turns out I was just letting your anxiety work with my own." 

Logan takes a deep breath in, and a shaky one out. He _is_ crying. 

"I know that it's been a while but, Virgil is acting as a consultant on our show and I was talking to him about you, he said that with all honesty you're kinda miserable now and I said I'm sure I'll just make it worse and he clouted me." 

"He does that."

"I think he thinks one day he'll hit one of our brain cells and have it working." 

"He can fucking well try," He leans his head against the window. "I'm getting old though,"

"You aren't even wrinkling yet," Roman reaches through the window to trail a finger down Logan's face gently. "But I don't really care, sure you'll be seventy when I'm fifty-nine, and I'll probably be buying you a Zimmer frame and taking you for hearing tests but you're not seventy Logan and you need to stop acting like you are." The elder man leans into the touch, closing his eyes with a deep sigh. "And honestly, whilst you've still got some working hips I'd like to take full advantage." Logan blushes, half laughing through his tears. "So can I come in, and you can stop acting like an invalid?"

"Sure." He leans through the window to kiss him softly. "But if my hip ever goes it better be your fault."

"You can count on that, sweetheart." Logan shakes his head, wondering how many more years it'll take this time. But for a change, somewhere deep down, he knows that Roman came back for a reason.


End file.
